What is Vitamin B Complex? Why is it so Important to Your Health?

The B-Complex vitamin is not a single vitamin, but rather is a complex of eight different water soluble vitamins that combine together to play a large role in your overall health and well being. Each of these eight water soluble vitamins plays its own unique role in your health and wellness, and each individual vitamin can be found in different whole food sources and synthesized through different means as well.

This combination of different B vitamins plays an important role in the metabolism of cells. While these vitamins may coexist in many of the same foods, they are chemically distinct vitamins that can be found separately in many whole food sources as well. When all eight vitamins are combined together, this is referred to as the Vitamin B complex. The Vitamin B complex is always the combination between all eight water soluble vitamins in their correct dosages. Because these vitamins are water soluble, it means that they must be taken regularly because the unused vitamins are flushed out of the body via urination rather than stored in the liver like fat soluble vitamins.

The eight vitamins that when combined make up the B-Complex vitamin are Thiamine, Riboflavin, Niacin, Pantothenic Acid, Pyridoxine, Biotin or Vitamin H, Folic Acid or Vitamin M and Cobalamin. Not getting enough of these vitamins in your diet can result in a number of deficiencies. The B-Complex vitamin supplement is designed to deliver the right vitamins in the right dosages to prevent these deficiencies from occurring. Thiamine deficiency causes emotional disturbances, weight loss, encephalopathy, irregular heart beat and heart failure. Riboflavin deficiency causes ariboflavinosis which has a number of symptoms including high sensitivity to light and seborrhea dermatitis or pseudo-syphilis. Niacin deficiency can cause pellagra, with symptoms including dermatitis, insomnia and mental confusion.

A Pantothenic acid deficiency can result in acne and a disease called paresthesia, but both of these conditions are rare. Anemia, depression, high blood pressure and dermatitis can all result from a pyridoxine deficiency. Macrocytic anemia is the most common result of a folic acid deficiency, and birth defects are common in pregnant women who do not get enough of this vital vitamin supplement. Finally, a Cobalamin deficiency is also responsible for Macrocytic anemia along with a number of problems related to the brain, such as memory loss, peripheral neuropathy and other cognitive deficits.

Because a deficiency in each of these vitamins can cause a myriad of different health issues, it is vital that your body receives enough of each of these vitamins. The B-Complex vitamin concept allows for supplementation of all eight vitamins simultaneously, as multiple deficiencies can overload the body with a number of illnesses and ailments. The B-Complex vitamin is a powerhouse of a vitamin combination as all of these separate vitamins work hand in hand to deliver powerful health benefits to the body. These health benefits provided by the B-complex vitamin include support of the metabolism and increase in the rate of metabolism, maintenance of healthy muscle tone and skin and enhancing the function of the nervous system and the immune system.

The B-Complex vitamin also promotes the growth and division of cells, including the red blood cells that are responsible for preventing anemia. B-Complex vitamins also have shown to significantly reduce the risks associated with pancreatic cancer, which is surprisingly one of the most deadly forms of cancer out there. This only applies to B-complex vitamins when consumed in whole food sources, however, rather than when ingested as a synthesized vitamin supplement.

B-Complex vitamins can be found in many whole food sources, and are also available in synthesized forms as tablets or liquid vitamin supplements. Whole food sources for B-complex vitamins include potatoes, lentils, bananas, chili peppers, tempeh, liver, liver oil, tuna, turkey, brewer’s yeast, nutritional yeast and molasses. Vegemite and Marmite are popular sources for all of the B-complex vitamins, and beer is also a moderately useful source for this vitamin complex because of the high content of brewer’s yeast found in most beers.